


(Spanning) the Distance to Rapunzel

by Cartwheellou



Series: After Summer's End [5]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Asking for directions, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nikki Likes Wolves, grappling hook, post-camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartwheellou/pseuds/Cartwheellou
Summary: Nikki isn't good at lying. Nikki isn't good at navigation. Nikki isn't very good at making friends, either—but she is good at keeping the ones she has, and she is good at adventuring. She'll have to find a way to push through those more unpracticed aspects—she has a friend to rescue.





	(Spanning) the Distance to Rapunzel

Nikki blinked sleeplessly up at her ceiling, listening to the thick beat of her clock thrumming through the air. If she were to shine the flashlight resting by the head of her bed on its face, she would be able to see it was much too late to be awake—though she didn’t need the clock to tell her that. Her eyes stung for sleep. Only whenever she closed them, they sprung back awake like reverse mousetraps.

She watched dull stars stuck to the ceiling above her head. They were faded with age; some had fallen off, leaving behind gummy spots on the paint that were only visible as dark smudges in the night. There was a large one on her left whose point was losing its hold.

The wind occasionally rattled the windowpane in its frame, fast like knocking hands. Every time this happened, she jolted up in her bed, staring out the window to find her empty backyard. She was expecting to find the very tips of curly black hair and a receding fist, but they had yet to arrive. Every other Friday at nine to nine fifteen, he would arrive, but it was undoubtedly past that and he still was yet to arrive like he should have.

She supposed it was possible Max’s parents wanted him to do something with them. He said it never happened almost ever because they _never_ wanted to do anything with him (anything to do with him, more like), but they might have sprung it on him. Nikki’s mom always surprised her with doctor visits, so she could understand that there might have been something with no forewarning whatsoever. It _was_ Friday night, after all.

If that was the case, then he would be coming soon. It might be later in the night or even early in the morning, but whatever they were having him do was surely over by now. That meant he was already on his way on the bus, snoozing or eating or reading—she didn’t know if Max read, but he kind of seemed like he might. He was coming.

Nikki blinked sleeplessly up at her ceiling, listening to the thick beat of her clock thrumming through the air. She often liked to tell herself it was the branches tapping against each other in the wind, or the cautious, consistent steps of an animal creeping across leaves. She pulled her blankets up to her chin despite the heat and rolled onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut tightly despite how they stung to open. She liked the noise of her clock, but she couldn’t fool herself into thinking it was someone tapping on her window, and the wind was just a lie.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Nikki turned her heavy, bleary eyes to the time. Glare from the window glanced across its face and made it hard to read. She rubbed her face with the heels of her palms and yawned, shuffling out from under her sun dappled covers. She glanced to her clock to confirm, but she already knew it was late. She glanced out her window to check—there was no irate face out there, upset at being unable to wake her with only knocks. She climbed back on her bed and leaned over to see if there was anyone sitting beneath the sill, just to make sure. There was no one.

Resigning herself to getting dressed, she picked her overalls off the floor, slipped them over her shoulders, and roped her mane into loose, tangly pigtails before wandering out into the kitchen to grab a poptart. She ate in on the couch in front of the large window that showed the sidewalk stretching long in both directions, watching for a grouchy head of hair to come strolling down from the left, moaning how it got out of bed at seven to catch the morning bus. It didn’t come.

After finishing her breakfast, she dredged up her drawing supplies and dragged over a low table until it butted up against the glass. She drew a dog eating a squirrel, a bug crawling up her arm, and a bird dive bombing a worm. By then, the sun had slipped off her chest and roved up on the table. Still no one came to complain about what their parents did last night or how late the buses were. How very, very late the buses must have been.

She went outside to lay on the grass in the front yard—she usually went to lay in the backyard, but she had to anticipate a face leaning over her, worn with relief before slumping to the ground beside her. She would sigh too, because at this point the only thing in her field of vision was the blaring sun, already moving away from its peak. The struggling rumble of her mom’s car engine echoed from up the street and pulled into the driveway, home from her first job.

Something was not right. Because her mom got home late, and the bus route must have already cycled through three times today.

Nikki climbed to her feet, watching the garage door come down over the red glow of her mom’s tail lights. She tread back over to the cement path that lead up to the front of the house and pulled the storm door open—the only thing standing between her and the inside. Through the archway into the kitchen, she saw her mom enter the room. Candy pulled out a chair and fell down into it, her purse falling off her shoulder and thudding on the floor with a weary sag. She lifted her head to meet her daughter’s eyes.

“Hey, Nicolette. What have you been up to?” she smiled sleepily, propping her elbow on the table and her head in her hand.

Nikki swallowed and started inside, over to the table next to Candy. Her mom reached out to rake a hand through one of her pigtails, combing out errant strands of grass with her fingers. “Waiting for Max,” Nikki answered. “He hasn’t come at all today.”

Candy hummed. “You mean that boy that’s around here sometimes? Were you expecting him today?”

“Yes.”

“If he’s not here, I’m sure it’s because he’s busy.”

“Can I go check and make sure?”

“His parents probably don’t want you bothering him if he has something to do. Why don’t you hold off on seeing your friend until tomorrow?” Candy suggested. As she talked, she heaved herself to her feet and over to the fridge.

“His parents aren’t ever home. He walks over. And he wouldn’t have something to do because he always comes. I just want to go see. If he’s busy, I can come back.”

Candy opened the door and pulled the milk out of it, then stretched up to the cupboard for a glass. She glanced over at Nikki still standing next to the table. “He’s only a few streets away, right?”

Her tongue was heavy in her head, so she just nodded.

Her mom sighed. “I suppose you could at least go and check. But if he’s busy, I want you to turn your butt straight around and come home, understand? Don’t be learning to distract boys from their work just yet,” she instructed, pouring herself a drink.

“Okay. Can I have some money? We always go to the gas station to get food.”

Candy’s lips quirked. “That the kind of stuff you should be using your chore money for.”

“I used it all up last week.”

“Then you ran fresh out, baby doll.”

“What if I sweep and dust when I get home?”

“You wanna take out a loan?”

Nikki nodded.

“Alright, then. But that means if I see dirty floors and shelves after I see you not cleaning, you’ll be in debt. You can take seven dollars.” Nikki was already reaching into her mom’s purse as her words finished.

“Thanks mom, I’m going to go now.” Nikki ran out of the kitchen with her money clenched in her fist, her mom’s “Be safe!” chasing her to her room.

Nikki closed the door behind her, jogging up to her closet and throwing it open. Legos and shirts tumbled out at her feet. She caught the flash of the dress her grandma got her for her last birthday and shoved it back into the depths of stuff so she couldn’t see it anymore. Then, pushing mounds and hangers aside, Nikki dug through the masses until she pulled free the cloth bag she had gotten from the grocery store. Her mom had told her she would regret wasting her money on it later, but Nikki considered it a useful investment of versatile use.

She darted around her room shoving various objects into her bag. She didn’t know exactly what she needed, so she grabbed a bit of everything. She collected tomorrow and overnight clothes out of her dresser, her hair brush from off the top, and the grappling hook from the puddle it sat in on the floor near the head of her bed. She opened her money jar on her nightstand, fished out the 24 dollars that still resided inside of it, wadded it up with the 7 dollars she just got from her mom, and stuck in down in the cloth bag with the rest of her stuff. She grabbed the bug spray from her junk pile and a pair of fluffy socks from the top dresser drawer. Finding her bag still unreasonably empty, she swept the entire top of her dresser off into it, including a rubix cube, a bobble head, a pack of cards, and a watch.

She crossed the bag handles by tucking one through the other and put them both over her shoulders like a misshapen backpack. Before leaving, there were still two more things she needed to retrieve. She skipped over to her sock drawer to open her box of Special Things. Threading through the objects, pushing aside her favorite push pin and a small sketch she ripped out of one of her school notebooks, her fingers snagged the addresses of her two friends. She smoothed the paper out to examine it. Max’s was on top, sharply penned and slightly crunched. She tucked it in her pocket for easier access. Next she grabbed her plastic bag full of dirt and bean sprouts—she would need it to stay healthy while on the buses. Ready to leave, Nikki jumped out her bedroom door.

Her mom shouted down the hall, “Nicolette, I’m leaving now to run some err—! Oh, you’re right there.” Candy lowered her voice back to a normal volume when Nikki stepped into view. “I’m leaving now to run some errands before I go back to work, alright?”

“Okay.”

“Hey, what’s all this?” Candy halted her leaving arrangements to go up and pick at the strap of Nikki’s makeshift backpack. “What exactly are you doing over at this boy’s house?”

“It’s just some stuff! For fun! You know, like my grappling hook!” Nikki smiled and hoped her mom wouldn’t want any more answers.

Candy quirked her lips. “I suppose—but if your friend is busy, you leave right then. I won’t have his parents thinking I’m raising some spitting wild child.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Okay, then. I’m going; see you later, Nicolette.” Candy only dawdled to lay a kiss on the top of her daughter’s head before sweeping her brick of a handbag bag over her shoulder and stepping out the door.

Nikki stalled in the kitchen for a few seconds, listening to the sound of the car starting and the garage door pulling up, before scuttling over to the fridge and yanking it open. She slung the bag off her shoulders and held it to the shelf of the fridge, knocking things she could eat with her hands down in. Despite begging her mom for gas station money, Nikki was hesitant to stop there before getting on the bus. She wasn’t sure about her mental bus schedule, but she had the inkling that it would arrive at the stop a few streets over soon. Making sure she was set for her rides one last time, Nikki was out the door and onto the sidewalk. The sun already getting lower in the sky; she set herself for the trip and started off.

 

* * *

  

“Excuse me, does this bus take me to Wilburn?”

The bus driver looked down at Nikki. He had a permanently pulled up lip and a raised brow, with curious eyes sweeping over her small frame. Nikki held tighter the few bills she had clenched in her fist and gazed back at him. He didn’t reply for a beat—just looked at her, as if she would continue off down the sidewalk if he just kept up his skeptical stare. Nikki blinked up at him. “Girlie, Wilburn is a two hour car ride from here,” he eventually responded.

Nikki affirmed her stance. “And how do I get there?”

His face contorted a bit like she was offering him an interesting food dish, and he tilted chin up to stare over her head in a way she knew he was scanning for an accompanying adult. “Who’s with you?”

“Nobody. I’m going by myself.”

He narrowed his eyes at her in a speculative manner. “Ain’t you a little young to be travelling alls by yourself?”

“Wolf kin travel from a much earlier age,” she expressed.

He ‘hnn’ed. “Where’s your parents?”

“Wilburn.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Wilburn?” he repeated. “The two hours away Wilburn?”

“I got lost,” she elaborated.

“No kidding. Say, what’s with the pack? You sure you ain’t running away?”

“No, I’m just trying to get home.”

He touched the bridge of his nose. Nikki watched him lean back in his bus driver throne and blow out a great puff of air. He lifted off his cap and raked a hand through his balding hair before refitting it on his head. He glanced to the mirror that let him see into the back passenger area where a couple of other passengers were waiting, waiting.

“Alright, girlie,” he conceded. “Put your money in the slot. I’ll tell you when to get off. This bus doesn’t go all the way to Wilburn, but it’ll get you to the transfer point, and there’ll be a bus there that can get you to Wilburn, okay?”

Nikki nodded eagerly and fed her bills into the money machine before skipping and swinging into the seat right behind the driver.

“Sorry for the delay, folks!” he called. The driver fit the bus back into gear and gassed off. The vehicle lurched, but ultimately pulled away back onto the road. Nikki cuddled down into the seat, staring out the window, waiting for the transfer point.

 

* * *

 

“Girlie, here’s where to skip town!” The bus pulled alongside a stretch of curb between two others. The halt, accompanied by the bus driver’s shout, pulled Nikki from her reverie of beating the wall in front of her with the tips of her shoes. A few other people were rushing by her through the aisle—she waited for them to pass before hopping of her seat and racing towards the door.

“Thanks for all your help, Mr. Bus Driver!” she called, halfway down the steps.

“Make sure you find someone to help you get on the right bus!” he shouted after her as she skipped off onto the cement. Dimly, she heard the sight of the doors before snapping shut and the grouchy roar of the engine as the bus behind her rumbled away. Then she was alone. Or at least, partially alone.

A few people milled around. There was a group of people with suitcases hanging out by a bench, and others migrated in and out of bus shelters. Her first instinct was to look for anything posted or anything with a screen, but there was none of that. Then remembering the bus driver’s words, Nikki snagged the wrist of a lady with a large faux crocodile bag walking by.

The lady stopped on a dime and hefted her purse, spinning to face Nikki quite suddenly. She froze when her glare met empty airspace and Nikki drew her attention with another tug on her wrist. The lady looked down. “Dear lord I almost hit you.” She collected herself, swinging her hair away from her face, and bent down, setting her hands on her knees. “What do you need, honey? Where are your parents?”

“I need to find the bus that goes to Wilburn,” Nikki answered.

“Are…” The woman looked around. “Are you here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get separated? You should stay put and wait for the adults you came with to—”

“I came here alone,” Nikki interrupted. “I’m just trying to get home.”

“You’re trying to get home… in Wilburn?”

Nikki nodded, confirming.

The lady started. “Christ. Okay. That’s… okay. We can find the bus.” She sat down all the way on her haunches and pulled the side of her bag away from her body to dig around in it, half of her forearm sinking down into her purse. She retracted a phone from its contents and began tapping around on it. The lady’s search lasted longer than Nikki’s attention span—she began to glance around, watching people file on buses. A bird flew inside one of the bus shelters with a bit of twig in its mouth, maneuvering around to a small dirty nest shoved up in the corner. She began to move towards it when the lady grabbed her wrist and said, “Oh, no, sweetie, please stay here. I’ve almost found your bus. One second.” Tongue peeking out of her mouth, she tapped a few more times and exclaimed, “Here it is! The 52 arrives in 45 minutes—it’s the next one out to Wilburn. Now, my bus leaves in 5 minutes…” The woman looked at her watch, although she seemed to know all the times already, and then glanced around at all the other milling adults.

“Honey, how old are you?” the woman asked.

Nikki blinked at the strange question. “I’m 11.”

“11. She’s 11, okay, that’s fine; she’s fine,” the lady repeated to herself. “Okay… do you have a watch?” Not waiting for Nikki to answer, the woman held both of Nikki’s bare wrists up for inspection. “No.”

“I have a watch in my bag,” Nikki interrupted.

“Great. Can you put it on? You’ll need to keep a close eye on the time.”

Complyingly, she peeled her bag off her back and stuck an arm around to dig inside, the hard corners of random items digging into her skin while she felt around for the rubber wrist strap. She eventually pulled it free, and the woman took it from her to tie it around Nikki’s wrist herself before the girl could do anything.

“Remember, it comes in _45_ minutes—that’s at 6:55. Make sure you check your watch a whole bunch. You know what—I’m gonna write it down for you.” She began rooting through her purse again, retrieving a small notepad and a pencil. Using her knee as a table, she scribbled down _Bus 52 at 6:55_ and pressed it into Nikki’s palm. “If you ever get confused, you can show this to someone and they can help you, okay?” She checked her watch again.

“Okay.”

“Good. I have to go now, but don’t run off, okay? Keep an eye on the street, okay?”

“Okay,” Nikki confirmed.

The lady nodded one last time before guiding Nikki over into the closest shelter and leaving for the bus at the end of the row, heels clicking sharply against the concrete. Alone again, Nikki slung her bag down next to her and pulled out her bag of dirt and a ball. Hearing a chirp above her, Nikki looked up to find a bird shoving its beak down its baby’s throat, horking food up. Nikki clenched the ball in her fist and sighed, staring down at the piece of paper the lady had given her. She’d never considered patience one of her strong suits, but just this one time, she supposed she would just have to deal.

 

* * *

 

Nikki played with her ball, mushed around the dirt in her bag, rewound her grappling hook, counted her money, put on her fluffy socks, and lied her way onto another bus where she ate all her food and tried to rest against the window pane without letting the bumping of the bus pound a knot into the side of her head. The sun out in front on her touched the edge of land and burned a brilliant orange, blazing pink along the horizon and descending into a deep violet that stretched up the sky. Her watch, still clasped on her wrist, ticked the minutes by slower than usual—but the bus driver wasn’t very happy with her when she tried running around in the aisle. By the time the glow of the city grew in the distance, Nikki was about to jump out the bus window.

“Get home safe!” the bus driver yelled after her as Nikki leapt off the step of the bus onto the street of her destination city, the smell of victory cloying the air. Just a hop, skip, and a jump left.

Light struck around the avenue, filtering out from illuminated windows, but the sky above was the night blue. People strolled left and right along the sidewalk, moderately busy even this late—at least, it seemed busy to Nikki. There were plenty of people that could tell her the next bus she was meant to get on, but her legs were itching too much for anymore sitting. She raced towards a man in a cool hat and jumped, grabbing his arm. He yelped and jerked away, flinching as Nikki yelled, “Where’s Wilburn?!”

“What?”

“Oh—wait. Wrong one, I didn’t mean that. One sec.” Nikki reached down into her pocket to scrutinize at the address again. “Where’s Washington Avenue?”

“Um… that’s near downtown.”

“And which way is that?”

“It’s six miles away.”

Nikki felt a little thrum through her chest. “And which was is that?” she repeated.

The man hesitated before pointing off behind her. “That way?”

“Okay.” Nikki nodded resolutely and shot off, sprinting in the direction of his finger, her legs finally stretching free.

“Hey, wait! Kid!” the man called, his voice bounding after her. “You can’t run there, kid! It’s too far!”

Nikki didn’t answer. Wolves ran for much longer.

 

* * *

 

Nikki chose her next target as they stalled under the bright oasis of a street lamp, pulling their phone out to briefly scroll. The soft growl and heavy pant of Nikki’s heaving chest in her ears was lost beneath the torrent desire of witnessing terror. She burst into view with a roar, snarling and gnashing her teeth. The teenager screamed, throwing their hands up to their face. Nikki laughed, bending over to lean her hands on his knees and hack out a few more exhausted breaths before gasping, “Where’s Washington Avenue?”

The teen, a hand still to their chest, glanced around. Nikki, still patiently in front of them, lifted her head to stare at them. “Um… you’re standing on it?” they eventually responded, prompting Nikki to pop back up.

“Really? That’s great! Okay, where’s uh…” Nikki wiped the sweat off her forehead and scanned her paper. “760 Washington Avenue?”

They shrugged, still wide eyed. “I don’t know; look at the building numbers.”

Nikki spun to face the buildings all around her, their facades entirely dark as it was night. “Those numbers on the buildings?”

“That’s—that’s what a building number is.”

Nikki stumbled over to the nearest building, walking up the first few stairs to the door so she could make out the numbers painted above the frame. “It says 367.”

“That’s nice,” the teen responded, already inching their phone back up. Their eyes flickered down.

Nikki jumped down the steps and darted over to the building next door. The plank above the door was blank, and there weren’t any numbers nailed by the side. “Hey. Hey, there’s no numbers on this one.”

“There’s numbers on all the buildings.”

“But I can’t find them,” Nikki whined.

“Jesus Christ.” They raised their phone and tapped a few times, activating a beaming flashlight they roved over the surface of the building until it landed on the chipped painted numbers still claiming 365. “See? It’s right there.”

“Ohhh. Okay. So if _that_ one is 367, and _this_ one is 365, then 760 is…” Nikki debated, a pointed finger swaying between directions like an indecisive compass needle. “This way! It’s this way! Thanks!” She leapt back down to the sidewalk, hardly touching a step, and shot off down the street—she was firm on the scent now.

 

* * *

 

Nikki strongly associated Max’s apartment building with a dungeon castle—what else would manage to hold her friend hostage?—so it was little disillusionary to be standing in front of the building and find that there was no lighting striking around, no bears loitering by the entrance, and no eternal scream piercing the air. She scrutinized her scrap of paper one last time. _Wilburn, 760 Washington Avenue, room 501._ It did indeed match the numbers tacked to the outside of the building.

Nikki walked in the front door and was greeted by no one. No guards or axes or anything—just two elevators, a door to a flight of stairs, and a hallway extending off down in front of her, apartment doors lining the way. The elevators were on her right.

Her first instinct was to bound up the stairs, but she found herself rather winded, and she didn’t get to ride in elevators often, so she bounced over to hit the button. She rocked back and forth on her heels, waiting with just the sound of her breathing. It eventually dinged and the doors slid open.

Nikki believed she remembered that the first part of a room number was usually its floor number, so she punched the button for the fifth floor and hoped she was right. The little traveling light on the button display carried her upwards until the elevator topped out and the doors pulled back to reveal the cross section of a hallway.

She stepped out and glanced left and right, rooms extending down on both sides. The room right in front of her was 526, so she assumed she was on the right floor and walked left back towards the front of the building, watching the room numbers counting down. 25, 24, 23, 22, 21…

She could see Max’s apartment door in front of her. Her steps dragged—her eyes burned—the night, the closeness of her destination, reeled her forward. 4, 3, 2, 1. She stopped in front of the unassuming gate her friend was undoubtedly hidden away behind, quite literally within reach, and lifted her hand to knock.

For the longest time afterwards, there was no response. Not a sound emanated from within—putting quite a damper on her moment—so she knocked again, louder. Immediately after, a response was snapped from inside. “I’m coming!” A few seconds later the handle turned and the door swung wide, revealing a towering figure backlit by hard, white light, hard and straight pressed lines of clothes, hard, flinty gaze. Eyes swept her up and down, and before Nikki could inquire as to the whereabouts of Max, they uttered, “No cookies, thanks,” and closed the door.

Nikki paused, startled, before knocking again to clear up the misunderstanding. What kind of girl scout came around this late at night, anyway? But no one came to the door again, and Nikki was knocking for quite a decent amount of time.

She leaned back with crossed arms and huffed. She hardly came all this way to get turned away, but this was quite a monkey wrench. Of course, a good knight could deal with any kind of problem—even one like this—and Nikki was sure she would be a very good knight. Or maybe, knowing exactly what she had in her bag, a ninja would be more suited to this type of mission. She sighed and turned back to the elevator. Of _course_ she was excited to do such daring work, but she was also rather tired, and getting let in through a door would be a lot easier.

Fully exiting the building and studying its facade, she determined that there was no simple way to scale the front. No convenient hand hold bricks stuck out from the sheer face, and she guessed she was just a little short to jump from window to window. The windowsill could do if she was in a real pinch, but preferably there would be another way. Sadly, she didn’t think she would be able to throw her grappling hook all the way to the top like Batman—however, descending from the top was viable, if she could break onto the roof. She saved that for later and rounded the side of the building.

This side, she was pleased to find, had opportunity. Every third row of windows was actually a sliding glass door with a small, railed balcony. Balcony, window, window, balcony, window, window, all the way down the side. And Max’s room, 501, was five stories directly above her.

She slung her bag off her shoulder and stuck her arm inside, feeling around for a rope or a bit of curved metal. Grasping the worn coil, Nikki fished out her grappling hook from the bottom of her bag. She had rewound it waiting for the bus to Wilburn, but it had somehow knotted itself, and she spent the next few minutes tugging on it in frustration until it finally fell free to the ground, all sleek rope in neat piles. She picked up the hook, a familiar weight in her hand, and spun it around, slow at first, then faster, until it was whizzing near her ear and the momentum strained against her hand. She let it soar upwards, coming down with a clang on the first story balcony rail; she doubted her ability to land the second story.

She scampered up the rope easy enough, familiar between her hands, but upon reaching the railing, Nikki took care to peek over the edge to check for a clear coast before flopping over the lip onto the ground. This way, she could practice her ninja skills and avoid people thinking she was going to rob them at the same time. Very quietly, she removed the hook and reset it in her hands. She wasn’t tall enough to lean over the rail to throw it—she had to stick her arm out with her elbow up above her head and whirl it around, doing her best not to let the course crash it into the metal before releasing it. Predictably, her first throw was a little wonky. Feeling it not catch on and begin to fall, she was careful to keep hold of the rope so it wouldn’t slip away and leave her stranded. After reeling it back up, she threw again and managed to catch it on her next try.

Peering into the second story apartment, she saw two people lounging on a couch watching tv. They didn’t seem very attentive to their surroundings, and there was a small bit of curtain shielding a portion of the balcony from view, so she deemed it safe enough to scramble over the railing, snag her hook, and dive into the protected area. Waiting still against the wall, no one opened the sliding door, so she assumed she had succeeded, swung her rope up, felt it lock in place, and climbed away.

As she climbed up to the side of the next balcony, she couldn’t quite see into the next apartment. They also had curtains framing the door, just drawn enough that all she could see was the narrowest sliver of a near wall. Throwing caution to the wind, she heaved herself over onto solid ground, plopping into view of a small boy playing with a plastic train of the other side of the glass. They locked eyes. Slowly, Nikki put a finger to her lips.

The boy immediately turned around and shouted, “Mama there’s a ninja outside!”

“I can’t believe you’ve done this.”

An adult voice called from deeper in the apartment. “What do you mean there’s a ninja outside?”

Shooting to her feet, Nikki plucked up her hook and threw, missing terribly in her haste.

“There’s a ninja on her balcony. Come quick, she’s leaving!”

Nikki fished it back up and reset it.

“See? Right there!” She glanced over and saw the little boy point at her, a grown woman next to him. The woman squinted. Nikki froze—she already had a phone in her hand.

“...Didn’t you ask me for directions an hour ago?” the woman questioned.

Nikki hadn’t the foggiest. “Sure did. Bye now!” Due to the Laws of Hollywood, her next throw caught and she made her clean getaway before the witnesses could question anything else about her appearance.

Approaching the next railing, she still couldn’t see into the apartment, but some bright light was shining strong from inside and there were shadowed slats over most of the balcony floor, signifying shades were half drawn—plenty to protect her from view. She jumped over, reoriented herself so she would be scaling from the front of the balcony again (in order to see inside the apartment), and was away again. Away towards Max’s apartment.

Clambering up the rope with no light shining on her but the ambient glow of the city, creeping towards an unsuspecting people, Nikki’s breathing suddenly jumped into her focus and she was painfully aware of the worn, tested rope beneath her hands, and the cool touch of railing metal, and the heavy mass of air sitting between her and the pavement far beneath her. She had reached the gate again. Right along the ground, she peered into the sterile environment. The only sign of human activity was seen through the largely barren living room, through the narrow kitchen archway, where they were sitting at a table drowning in illuminated white papers, hunched over a pen. Softer than a spider, Nikki grasped the bars of the balcony railing and inched over it, gaze fixed on the presence at the table. Her feet touched down and she skittered to the side where the wall would shield her, soundlessly pulling her grappling hook along. Her heart beat, and if there weren’t walls between them, Nikki would fear that it would give her away. For the first time since embarking, she didn’t know her next move. She was trapped there on the wall.

She wasn’t able to waltz through the sliding door. She couldn’t call Max to her. She had to get inside, but her only access point, aside from the one already struck, was the window on her right. Just a glance told her that the window was doubtlessly shut, but it gave her no clue as to whether or not it was locked. Still, she had her hook in her hand and two legs beneath her.

Pooling the rope on the ground, she found the very end and held it in her fist. She reminded herself that ninjas didn’t get scared and looped it twice around her waist, knotting it three times. She tangled the hook around the railing, and even though she wouldn’t be able to get it back after jumping with it like that, that was a problem to deal with later.

Nikki hopped up on the railing, setting her hands and feet on the top in a crouch like spiderman, hardly tottering with the wind. Rather than looking down, she set her sights on the window ledge a leap away—not quite wide enough to walk along, sure, but possibly to grasp ahold of—and sprung, thrusting against the railing with her toes and stretching her arms out, stretching her sides and ramming her fingers into the glass. Her arms crumpled on the edge of the sill; she focused only on setting her elbows on the lip, not on her body crashing against the brick and jolting her whole frame and not on her feet instinctively scraping along the vertical wall for any nonexistent purchase—she clenched her eyes, clenched her teeth, clenched her arms, clenched her entire body and held as tight and as still as she could until her body stopped rocking and her legs, swinging helplessly, stilled, and she was still tucked against the side of the building, suspended in the air.

“...Nikki?”

Releasing the breath she hadn’t noticed was still in her lungs, Nikki relaxed her scrunched up face, opened her eyes, and looked up to see Max standing incredulously above her.

“Fresh fucking hell?”

“Max!” Nikki beamed. “I found you!”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Open the window!”

He frowned and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not supposed to—” He froze. “I—I mean, yeah. Of course. One sec.” He shook his head and heaved the pane up from the bottom, gifting Nikki a narrow slot to crawl through. She dragged her belly over the sill and slumped to the floor with a sigh, the rope only barely tugging on her waist. Most of the slack was still hanging outside the window.

“Nikki.” Max nudged her with his toe. “How’d you get here?”

She rolled her eyes up to him. “I took the buses. Like you.”

“Okay—why?”

Nikki frowned at his profile—he wasn’t looking at her. “Did you not want me to come?”

“No,” he denied sharply, snapping his head over to her to show her his razor focus. “No, I’m glad you came. You just gotta be quiet, okay? My parents can’t know that you’re in here.”

“Okay,” she agreed. Nikki dragged herself off the floor and up onto Max’s bed, searching around the room. It was definitely much cleaner than hers. The floor was barren save a few articles of clothing smushed in the corner, and the walls were spotless of posters, pictures—anything. “So you couldn’t get out of your room?”  
“Are you kidding? Did you see them loitering by the front door? I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to go take a shit. Not to mention the fact that they’ve been banging on my door every now and then.” Max snapped up Nikki’s bag and began rooting through her things.

“So what should I do if they come in? Dive under the bed? Or should I go for the closet? Do you even have a closet?” Her attention roamed.

He didn’t drag his eyes away from the contents of her sack. “Don’t worry; they won’t come in. Honestly, I’m impressed that they’re going so far as to knock at all—just goes to show you what a couple of spiteful bastards they are.”

“Right. Then if you’ve just been in this room all day, what have you been doing?”

He shrugged. “Sleeping.” After a few more seconds of sifting fruitlessly, Max grunted and upended all of Nikki’s things onto the mattress.

“What are you looking for?”

“Food.” He racked his fingers through the objects to spread them thinner. “Did you seriously come here with no food?”

“Sorry. I ate it all.”

Max sighed and picked up Nikki’s deck of cards and bobblehead. “Why did you bring all this junk?”

“I don’t know. It just felt right.”

“Bullshit,” he claimed, but not very emphatically. He tossed the bobblehead back on the bed. “Let’s play cards. Do you know Uker?”

“No, but I know Go Fish.”

He slid the cards out of their package to shuffle, his hands moving fast and neat—he could even do the bridge thing. “Close enough.” He began to deal them out.

“How come you couldn’t leave yesterday?”

He maintained his strict dealer focus. “My mom caught me about to slip money from her purse. They threw me in here and haven’t let me out since.”

“Should I go get some food? I can go out the window. Since the hook’s already up here, it’ll be easy.”

“It’s too late tonight. You can swing out tomorrow and grab something from the gas station a few blocks away.” He fanned out his hand of cards. “Let’s just play Go Fish right now, even though this is a shitty game.”

“Okay.” Nikki swallowed all her other words. For now, they would just play this _great, amazing, wonderous_ game. “Got a red seven?”

“Go Fish.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nikki is a ninja, pass it on.


End file.
